Today in Local Sports Coverage: ‘Dolphins and Jets Don’t Go Together’

Yesterday was a slow sports day in the city. Most of your writers have decamped for South Florida and most of your coverage is content to dissect the big game.

Rich Cimini was in Fort Lauderdale, but he took a little time off from covering the Super Bowl to call Chad Pennington, who wouldn’t rule out coming back to the Jets as a backup.

“Would it be tough? Sure it would be tough, emotionally, but it’s always a possibility,” he said. “I never rule anything out. Absolutely.”

It’s enough to earn the back cover of the Daily News. Of course, there’s the perpetual injury question with Pennington, whose season ended in week three this year. But he’s been throwing and he feels good and he needs work. For now, that’s all in the future.

“This is different in a lot of aspects,” D’Antoni said. “A lot of guys are on one-year contracts. [We have] a lot of guys that are all similar, all kind of the same and I’ve always had teams where we’ve had 7-8-9 guys [and then] a pretty big cutoff.”

Hank Steinbrenner doesn’t think the Yankees will have that kind of big cutoff this year.

“The two trades that Brian did, I was really pleased with and proud of,” Steinbrenner said. “I think that is going to make a big difference for us.”

More importantly, what did Derek Jeter think?

“I asked him his opinion, and he said, ‘It’s all about pitching,’ ” Steinbrenner said.